I used to be so blinded and taken in by those with great intellect

I couldn’t see the rest of the person, as if intelligence, extensive reading, and knowledge didn’t require looking any longer into the soul of the person, or even more so into the wisdom of the person.

Slowly-slowly, I noticed strange conversations with those who prefer lofty ideas, beautiful metaphors to people, despising successes of practical people, and even their efforts and repeated attempts to learn and recover from failures. These conversations went nowhere, as disdain took over: so many words and no sense of reality.

Shallow stuff was drowning out the truth. It strikes me that many times I found that it has become tiresome to continue, too hard to even respond, to counter argue, as those elaborations, platitudes started to become illogical and irrational.

I had to put all my energy to restrain to not respond alike with disdain, as my respect for the person in front of me vanished not for the duration of the conversation but days after that. After repeated such discussions, it disappeared forever.

Blinded by intellect, knowledge and extensive reading, you might miss noticing whether there is also wisdom there within the character.